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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Torn Label Brewing Co - A New Brewery for Kansas City

Posted by
Kyle Black

You may have caught
wind of some brewery rumors as of late, and they've officially been confirmed. A couple weeks ago, the story was blown wide open after the Kansas City Star noticed a business license application for a new brewery. Torn Label Brewing Company will be opening late this year or early next year down in the Crossroads arts district.

I had
the opportunity to sit down with Rafi Chaudry and Travis Moore
to talk about their plans and the beers that they'll be making. While they're
both originally from Kansas City the two are recently returned from different
endeavors in Los Angeles and Chicago to start Torn Label. They said that they
couldn't imagine any other place to plant this project other than the city that originally cut their teeth in the world of craft beer.

While Rafi will be managing the business side of the
brewery, Travis will be the brew master. Travis has over 10 years of home
brewing experience and spent time in Chicago volunteering at Pipeworks Brewing
Company to learn how to scale the brewing process.

The operation is also has two other partners - Chad
Troutwine and his mother, Carol Troutwine. Both of Troutwines have experience
in the beer distribution industry as owners in the past, and it'll prove very
valuable to this operation. Chad Troutwine also has diploma in brewing from the
Siebel Institute of Technology.

They'll be opening up a 7,000 square foot brew house
equipped with a 15-barrel system in the south side of the Studios Inc. building
at 1708 Campbell Street. This is really exciting as they'll be located near
some other amazing artist in the same building as they crank out their planned
2500 bbls a year.

While they're certainly still in the planning phrases
- I tried to get down to the bottom line with Rafi and Travis, the beer.
They're planning on having three flagship beers when they start and as they go
they'll be supplementing those with seasonal and unique one-off batches as
well. Their flagship beers will consist of a Belgian table beer with honey that
will be modeled after the Trappist single style, an alpha session ale, and a
wheat stout with coffee. I personally find those very exciting and uncertainly untypical.

The guys plan on having a tasting room available, but
are going to be brewing the majority of their beer to be distributed as quickly
as they can get the operation up and running. They'll start by getting their
kegs into local beer bars like The Bier Station, The Belfry, and The Flying
Saucer before moving into other local establishments. There is the potential
for bottling some of their special releases by hand but there are no immediate
plans for a bottling line when the brewery first opens.

From talking with Rafi and Travis I can tell they
certainly care about the Kansas City beer scene and are very much a part of it
currently. I'm very excited to see them open their doors in the crossroads and
I look forward to being able to order a pint from Torn Label as soon as
possible. Stay tuned, because as they get closer to opening their doors we'll
review a few of their first beers brewed by Travis. We'll also pass along any
important news that comes out of their camp.